Looking for a drinking fountain? There will soon be an app for that

Where have all the public water drinking fountains gone? A new Android app …

You're in a new city and enjoying the sights on foot, public transportation, or bicycle. You're also one of those staunch travelers who packs your own drinking water. And not the plastic, over-the-counter, bottled stuff, either. No, you carry your H2O in your own container. But you are constantly frustrated by the scarcity of public drinking fountains in many urban places in the United States.

What you'd really like is a click-and-go online source for where the nearest public water cooler is. The good news is that there's a Android application for that. It's a collaborative app called WeTap, being developed by Google and the Pacific Institute in Oakland, California. The driving force behind the idea is Dr. Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, and author of Bottled and Sold: The Story of Our Obsession with Bottled Water.

"Where have all our drinking water fountains gone?" Gleick laments. "They have been disappearing, one by one, from our public spaces, parks, offices. And yet, it has become easier and easier to find expensive and environmentally damaging commercial bottled water. Safe, free drinking water used to be common: we all used public water fountains. Now they are hard to find, dirty, or broken."

Calling all volunteers

Gleick estimates that the typical water-craving American now buys and slurps down almost 30 gallons of commercially bottled fare a year. That's thirty times the amount of water purchased by the typical American in 1980. "One of the reasons for this explosive growth in the sales of bottled water is the disappearance of public drinking water fountains," he notes.

My favorite public drinking fountain, encountered in Barcelona, Spain

The Pacific Institute says that WeTap will provide a national database of fountains, with ready intel on the human-made spring's location, condition, and quality. Entries will come with comments and photos.

But there's a catch, of course. In order to create this application, WeTap will depend on crowdsourcing, and that means the project needs volunteers to actually go out and log in the details of all those public fountains into the database. So if you want WeTap to work, you're just going to have to join the water-seeking WeTap team. Recruits will need the following things:

1. An Android-capable smartphone

2. A Gmail account.

3. A Picasa photo account (to permit them to upload photos of water fountains).

4. A willingness to test the application by finding water fountains, uploading them to the database and core map, and provide feedback on the application so we can improve it.

The rest of the details are here. The first crowdsourcing campaign is taking place in Berkeley, California.

I'm doing my part - I do use public drinking fountains (where available) and don't buy bottled water. My parents do buy it though. I should try convincing them to stop.

I heard (but can't confirm) that standards for tap water are more strict than bottled. Is it true? It passes the smell test. The public's drinking/tap/city water must be inspected weekly (not sure what it's inspected for, could use some help on this), while the bottling plant must be inspected whenever the FDA feels like inspecting (which is rarely).

I'm doing my part - I do use public drinking fountains (where available) and don't buy bottled water. My parents do buy it though. I should try convincing them to stop.

I heard (but can't confirm) that standards for tap water are more strict than bottled. Is it true? It passes the smell test. The public's drinking/tap/city water must be inspected weekly (not sure what it's inspected for, could use some help on this), while the bottling plant must be inspected whenever the FDA feels like inspecting (which is rarely).

So now that we will know where they are all at, we can start an equally senseless effort to go around and pee in all of them.

As for quality of bottled water, I haven't noticed any difference between bottled and tap water in my area.

All those delis and cafes are required to provide you with free tap water if you ask for it. Public conveniences are disappearing mostly because laws are in place requiring the private sector to provide you with such services (if you remember to ask for it).

As for quality of bottled water, I haven't noticed any difference between bottled and tap water in my area.

That's because they're bottling your tap water.

That's true for Aquafina & Dasani - they just use municipal water supplies (local to the bottling plant) and filter it a little bit.

Spring water, OTOH, actually has regulations that dictate how it's labeled (or at least they used to). You can't just slap a "spring water" label on anything.

If you live close enough to Poland Spring that your local tap water comes from the same aquifers, you might still be getting the same thing.

Agreed. I have one of those 5 gallon bottled water dispensers at home and we only use glass bottles for it, from an actual spring in southern NY, -- not those shitty plastic bottles that augment the taste of the water so all you can taste is the plastic. Mmmmm....chemically *drool*

what about the studies that have shown public drinking fountains to be more dangerous for human health because of the shared germs and lack of cleanliness? will we be able to rank how good or bad the water tasted, and whether or not we got sick after drinking from them? it could prove useful during an epidemic.

As for quality of bottled water, I haven't noticed any difference between bottled and tap water in my area.

That's because they're bottling your tap water.

That's true for Aquafina & Dasani - they just use municipal water supplies (local to the bottling plant) and filter it a little bit.

Spring water, OTOH, actually has regulations that dictate how it's labeled (or at least they used to). You can't just slap a "spring water" label on anything.

If you live close enough to Poland Spring that your local tap water comes from the same aquifers, you might still be getting the same thing.

Agreed. I have one of those 5 gallon bottled water dispensers at home and we only use glass bottles for it, from an actual spring in southern NY, -- not those shitty plastic bottles that augment the taste of the water so all you can taste is the plastic. Mmmmm....chemically *drool*

Agreed. I have one of those 5 gallon bottled water dispensers at home and we only use glass bottles for it, from an actual spring in southern NY, -- not those shitty plastic bottles that augment the taste of the water so all you can taste is the plastic. Mmmmm....chemically *drool*

Isn't the dispenser made itself of plastic? And besides, does not using bottled water to fill the dispenser defeat the purposte of using it in the first place?

Agreed. I have one of those 5 gallon bottled water dispensers at home and we only use glass bottles for it, from an actual spring in southern NY, -- not those shitty plastic bottles that augment the taste of the water so all you can taste is the plastic. Mmmmm....chemically *drool*

Isn't the dispenser made itself of plastic?

Yes, it's made of plastic, but the water is not sitting in contact with a plastic surface for weeks (months?) because it sits in a glass container -- the water only touches the plastic of the dispenser for a second or two...not long enough for it to take on any taste from the plastic.

Quote:

And besides, does not using bottled water to fill the dispenser defeat the purposte of using it in the first place?

Not sure what you're getting at here? I'm not against using bottled water -- I enjoy my spring water -- I'm just against plastic bottled water because of the taste and any other chemicals that seep into the water from the plastic container.

Just what we need, more tools to make it easier for the TERRORIST to find places to plant their biological weapons!!

Panic, panic in the streets! Ban all iPhone apps! Ignore the fact that it's for Android, ban all iPhone apps!

This had me laughing. Donnicton makes a good point - you can't get people who are afraid and ignorant to stop making tin foil hats. Their rationale for buying "clean, safe" water in bottles is the same as their rationale for denying climate change. Dumbishness.

I had always taken water fountains for granted here in California. Then I went to Paris for vacation and that city is completely devoid of them. Even at the skating rink we went to, you had to either buy water from the vending machine or do the good old splash and slurp trick in the bathroom sinks. It's strange what you never notice until it's taken away.

best feature of bottled water is the connivence, it is available in a store and easy to find.

nothing against tap water, i use at home all the time.

Yeah, but tap water is just as available. As mentioned above, most municipalities have to give you tap water if you request it, though they may charge you a nominal fee for a cup (i.e. 5-25¢ usually). Cheaper, doesn't produce as much waste and you probably get more.

I really don't get people who buy the .5L bottles for home though-that is just crazy thinking (without a legitimate reason, of course-for the taste isn't legitimate).

I thought I read somewhere that Dasani, or some other brand, was actually the water used from the cooling condensers. I guess its technically distilled because of the cooling/condensation process, but it was just a way for the companies to recoup the money they were spending on the cooling system.

Agreed. I have one of those 5 gallon bottled water dispensers at home and we only use glass bottles for it, from an actual spring in southern NY, -- not those shitty plastic bottles that augment the taste of the water so all you can taste is the plastic. Mmmmm....chemically *drool*

Isn't the dispenser made itself of plastic?

Yes, it's made of plastic, but the water is not sitting in contact with a plastic surface for weeks (months?) because it sits in a glass container -- the water only touches the plastic of the dispenser for a second or two...not long enough for it to take on any taste from the plastic.

Quote:

And besides, does not using bottled water to fill the dispenser defeat the purposte of using it in the first place?

Not sure what you're getting at here? I'm not against using bottled water -- I enjoy my spring water -- I'm just against plastic bottled water because of the taste and any other chemicals that seep into the water from the plastic container.

You do realize that the water goes down into a plastic holding center first? When that gets low more water is dumped into it.

I think skicow is especially referring to plastic water bottles that have been exposed to sunlight and heat. I know exactly the sort of taste he dislikes, but I have generally not encountered that in places with high volume sales and proper storage.

Also not all plastic formulas are the same, I doubt the formulation of the cooler's plastic basin is the same as that of a cheap plastic bottle.

I wouldn't trust my health to most public drinking water these days. There are a few spots where the stuff that rolls out of the tap is great (Maine, Colorado and maybe some alpine countries) but the majority of tap water is crap. There is a reason people are drinking bottled water. It tastes better and I'd bet it's healthier in most places.

Matthew Lasar / Matt writes for Ars Technica about media/technology history, intellectual property, the FCC, or the Internet in general. He teaches United States history and politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz.